Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have reflected a lot on CervicalCheck, how it was handled, the extent to which it was handled well, and the extent to which we in government might have handled it better. I still reflect on it and on how we will handle these ongoing issues in the future. The truth, which I remember well, is that during the period in question, the Government was under a huge amount of pressure to act quickly. There were very few people in this House and in the media, and even more generally, who were willing to wait for all the information and the facts. We were under enormous pressure from many quarters to act quickly. Everything we did was in good faith. Sometimes we acted perhaps from the heart rather than the head but this decision was made in good faith. Tens of thousands of women were genuinely concerned about their smear tests and the accuracy. Tens of thousands of women attended for the tests. It is true that some doctors warned this backlog would arise but others called for the decision. The Chief Medical Officer supported the decision to do this. When the contract was negotiated with the general practitioners to provide the service, the IMO welcomed it.

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